A RETIRED family doctor is facing a long prison sentence after being convicted of sexually abusing a total of 23 female patients.

Roy Murray, 62, was found guilty by a Liverpool Crown Court jury of indecently assaulting 19 women last week, but was convicted of a further four yesterday.

Judge Brian Lewis warned him he faced a "substantial" jail term..

Between February, 1981, and February, 1998, Murray abused his position of trust and sexually attacked his victims under the guise of carrying out internal and breast examinations.

The doctor, a married father-of-three, worked at Liverpool Road surgery, St Helens, from 1981 until he retired from full-time practice in April, 2002.

During his nine-week trial, his victims told the court he took a long time to complete internal examinations and showed signs he was getting sexual pleasure from them.

He performed unnecessary intimate examinations and patients who went to the surgery with complaints, such as sore throats or heavy colds were told to undress and get on the couch.

He carried out internal examinations on women who had come to see him for repeat prescriptions of the contraceptive pill when he had done so only a few months beforehand.

One woman said Murray's conduct during an intimate examination was "similar to sexual foreplay".

A 30-year-old pharmacist, whom he was convicted of sexually assaulting, told the jury Murray leaned over her while she was half-naked on his surgery bed and asked her for a kiss and a cuddle immediately after carrying out an internal examination.

Two women complained about Murray's behaviour to the medical committee and one sent a letter to the health authority, but he went on to indecently assault more women. He ignored advice to offer a chaperone during intimate examinations.

Prosecutor Tim Holroyde, QC, told the jury, which took five days to reach its verdicts, Murray had done a great deal of good work for many of his patients throughout his career.

But he used his position of trust and his perceived reluctance of victims coming forward for his own sexual gratification.

Mr Holroyde told the court: "The prosecution case is that he used his position as a doctor to commit indecent assaults on some of his female patients under the cloak of carrying out medical examinations.

"The patients who were the victims of these indecent assaults felt that the defendant must know what was best and must be doing the right thing, however strange or unpleasant it was for them.

"They feared that no one would accept the word of a patient against a doctor.

"We suggest the defendant knew full well that advantage, and so was able to commit these offences on repeated occasions over many years."

Murray, of Gorsefield Avenue, Bromborough, Wirral, pleaded not guilty to 30 charges of indecent assault at the start of the trial.

He was acquitted of two and the jury was discharged from reaching verdicts in relation to the five remaining charges. The GP, who has been married since 1967, is originally from North East Scotland and went to Aberdeen University.

He qualified as a doctor in 1969 and worked in Wirral before moving to the single-handed practice in St Helens.

He will be sentenced on September 17.

Speaking after the verdicts, one victim, a 34-year-old woman, said: "Every time I went to see Dr Murray for a repeat prescription for the pill, he would insist on carrying out an internal.